He glanced up at me. “In my experience, playing matchmaker often backfires.”
I snorted. “When did you last play matchmaker?”
“Juliet and Morgan.”
I stared at him, chip halfway to my mouth, then lowered it again. “You tried to set up Juliet and Morgan.” Morgan was finally coming into his own as Master of Navarre House, but even still, I couldn’t see him with our pixie guard and fearsome fighter.
“‘Tried’ being the operative word,” Ethan said. “It didn’t take.” His voice was flat.
“Well, of course not.” I frowned, trying to imagine sly Juliet with the previously passive-aggressive Morgan. “Oil and water.”
“I don’t see why they should be. They’re both senior staff, in a manner of speaking. They’re both witty and intelligent people, Morgan more so now that he’s stepped out of Celina’s shadow.”
“Wrong personalities. Wrong chemistry.”
“There are some who’d say the same thing about us.”
“And they’d be wrong,” I said with a smile, and bit into the chip. “I help keep your ego in check.”
“I am a shy and retiring vampire,” he said, with not one bit of sincerity or believability. “And I keep you from running headlong into danger.”
I gave him a look.
“Well, I try,” he amended. “And is that to be your official Dry Wife Expression? I’d like to go ahead and commit it to memory.”
“You’re hilarious, husband.”
“And you’re beautiful, wife. Headstrong or otherwise.”
A compliment either way.
CHAPTER TEN
WE’LL ALWAYS (NOT) HAVE PARIS
I woke to the smells of chocolate and sugar, but kept my eyes closed, basking in the fantasy that Chicago’s problems had resolved themselves and we’d been whisked away to Paris while we slept. I’d open tall, iron windows to a balcony, a wonderful breeze, and a view of the Eiffel Tower.
“Bonjour, mon amour,” I said.
“You’re still in Chicago,” Ethan reminded me. “And the mayor wants to see us.”
Of course she did. I pulled a pillow over my face. “I can’t hear you. The sun’s still up.”
“The sun has set. And the mayor has beckoned. And I have breakfast.”
I tossed away the pillow, sat up.
Ethan sat beside me on the edge of the bed, naked but for a pair of silk pajama bottoms. The breakfast tray sat on the bedside table with the promised cup of dark, steaming chocolate, and two perfect-looking croissants beside a bowl of perky raspberries.
“Two delicious choices,” I said, leaning up to kiss him. “Good evening, husband.”
He smiled wickedly, kissed me back. “Good evening, wife.”
I plucked up a croissant, tore off the pointy end. “Did the mayor really summon us?”
“She did, as well as your grandfather. We’re all to be at her office as soon as possible.”
The croissant was good, but the thought of dealing with drama again made my mouth dry. Launching myself into a fight? Not altogether unenjoyable. Dealing with a mayor who tended to believe the worst of us? Not as much fun.
“We should have invited her to the wedding,” I said, crossing my legs and picking off another bite.
Ethan chuckled. “We did. Didn’t you see her?”
“No.” I grinned at him. “I only have eyes for you.”
“Mmm-hmm. And carbs.”
“Is she planning to blame us for what happened last night? I don’t see how she could. We kept the situation from getting worse.” I pointed to the Tribune folded beside the food, which featured a shot of Ethan and me in torn wedding clothes, hands linked and staring at the desolation. VAMPIRES STOP RAGING HUMANS was the headline. It was, by far, one of the better headlines we’d seen. Maybe the city was finally beginning to see us as soldiers, rather than perpetrators.
Ethan’s gaze slid across the room, to the stained and torn heap of white silk and lace on the floor. “Until we take that to Helen.”
“She’s probably seen the Tribune,” I said. “I suspect she already knows.”
“And will undoubtedly be stewing about it until we return to the House.” Ethan stood up, the bottom half of his outrageous body framed perfectly by draped silk. “Eat your breakfast and get dressed, and let’s get this over with.”
I’d do both. But since it was still technically my honeymoon, I put an arm around his waist, tugged him back to the bed.
The mayor and the croissant could wait a little while longer.
• • •
We dressed and traveled through the lobby of our beautiful hotel, stopping when it seemed everyone else was pressed against the lobby windows or walking around outside.
Something had happened. Something that had drawn the attention of the humans and, from the jittering energy in the room, had made them very skittish.
Take care, Ethan silently said, and we walked through them, whispers in our wake. We stepped outside . . . and into a thick swirl of white snow.
The flakes were enormous, the snowfall heavy enough that I couldn’t see the buildings across the street. They muffled the sound of traffic, of pedestrians, of the typical buzz of the city.
“It’s seventy degrees outside,” Ethan said. “This isn’t possible.”
I’d paired a thin, three-quarter-sleeved black shirt with jeans and boots and was actually a little warm. This probably wasn’t the first time it had snowed in Illinois in August. And while we could see only a sliver of sky between tall skyscrapers, what we could see was dark and clear. Which meant the snow wasn’t falling from clouds, but from nothing. It was spawning out of literal thin air somewhere above us.
“Magic,” Ethan quietly said. “Gabriel said there was something in the air. I thought he meant last night.”
“Yeah. I did, too.”
Magic buzzed around us, but without the chemical smell that had marked the hallucinations. This was magic, but different magic. I wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than the other option.
Our meeting with the mayor was about to get a little more intense.
My phone began to ring, and I pulled it out, checked the screen as Ethan did the same. There were alerts from Jeff and the House about the weather—and the wards that were screaming across the city.
Sorcha’s wards had been breached, which meant this was Sorcha’s magic—and she’d somehow managed to control the weather.
That was Official Big Bad territory.
“Let’s get moving,” Ethan grimly said, and we headed to City Hall.
• • •
The Loop’s sidewalks were busy with people who’d come out to wonder at the weather, catch snowflakes on their tongues, or take videos to share for the shock and awe of it.
City Hall looked like a lot of government buildings in the US—square, with granite, symmetrical rectangular windows, and lots of ribbed columns. The doors were edged in brass that gleamed like gold, and the lobby was marble, with towering vaulted ceilings and elevators covered by more lustrous brass.
Catcher and my grandfather stood in the lobby, just past the security area, waiting for us. My grandfather had exchanged his usual brown sport coat for a dark suit that was a little baggy in the arms, the trousers a smidge too long. I found both of those things almost stupidly endearing. Catcher wore jeans and a black T-shirt without a smart-ass comment, which was practically business wear as far as he was concerned.
“Good evening,” Ethan said.
My grandfather nodded, his expression somber.
“She’s in the city?” Ethan asked.
“There’s been no report of her yet,” Catcher said.
“If she isn’t here yet,” my grandfather said, “she’ll be here soon.” He glanced back at the snow falling outside. “She’ll want to see this.”
“What’s the protocol now that the wards have been triggered?” Ethan asked.
“Baumgartner will send a patrol to each sector,” Catcher said. Baumgartner was the leader of the Order, the sorcerers’ union. “They’ll determine where the breaches occurred, which will hopefully help us locate her and figure out what kind of magic she’s using.”